Aussies - what are your thoughts on moving Australia Day?

[Occams Barber]

It is very difficult to be nuanced and give a good summary of views on the forum. I have no issue with aborigines in general. I married one. Her racial background was not a contributor to the divorce. Some of Australia's most talented and successful citizens are aborigine. Stan Grant is the best example that I know of. If Australia was as racist as we are painted, Mr Grant would never have achieved the admirable success that he enjoys and that he richly deserves.

There are also groups of aborigines who want to be left alone to live their traditional lifestyle. That is fine, except it can go too far. One group charges entrance fees to government employees who come to help people with their social security claims. I admire the "gatekeeper's" gall but it is not his money to rip off.

Then there are those who can't agree among themselves who is the traditional custodian of the land. Claims can drag on for years and yes, it does matter. If the Western world is to stare down the threat of China, we need strong economies and self sufficiency in as much as possible. Either we develop our resources or China will be tempted to do it for us.

I've already voiced my thoughts on the other category. Please note that I stated that the inclination to blame everyone else is not the exclusive domain of aborigines.

As an aside, the locking in of Australia Day on the 26th of January is a recent occurrence. It used to be a Monday around that date so we all got a long weekend. Yet another "good intention" that backfired.

There are many people of aboriginal descent who are living happy and successful lives. This doesn't alter the fact that aboriginals, as a group, have been subjected to discrimination and systemic disadvantage. Many have done well in spite of the disadvantage. For others the legacy of discrimination and disadvantage is intergenerational.

I have real trouble understanding your attitude to shifting Australia Day. The act will cost you nothing. It comes across as disagreement for its own sake and a lack of consideration which is, frankly, less than Christian.

OB

 

[Occams Barber]

I lived with an indigenous flat mate and this fellow, was also an orphan of the state. I am acutely aware of the damage to the indigenous society, that white settlement inflicted. I would know more than most Australians about their plight, because I have lived with them.

Changing the date of Australia day in the long term, will not alter the landscape of the indigenous world. The damage was too deep and profound, and requires an enormous, long term input from Australian society.

Did you know that Australia is the only Commonwealth nation that doesn’t have a treaty with its Indigenous people?

Shifting Australia Day is a small gesture which costs you nothing. The effect of the change may be small but, at least, it's a public acknowledgement that Australia Day is a celebration for all Australians.

OB

 

[eclipsenow]

Stan Grant is the best example that I know of. If Australia was as racist as we are painted, Mr Grant would never have achieved the admirable success that he enjoys and that he richly deserves.

One success story does not show what is happening elsewhere. Bennelong was dressed up as a European and paraded about as an assimilation success story - and that was while we were busy committing genocide in other areas of the country!

One group charges entrance fees to government employees who come to help people with their social security claims. I admire the "gatekeeper's" gall but it is not his money to rip off.

Cool story - evidence please? Also, so what does this prove even if it is true? What if that land was the dreamtime equivalent of say the site where (they claim) Jesus was born? What if it is really important to them? We invaded their country and declared it terra nullius - and that was overturned by Mabo. We've committed so many crimes against the original inhabitants of this land that as far as I am concerned they can keep their gatekeepers fee for all time.

If the Western world is to stare down the threat of China, we need strong economies and self sufficiency in as much as possible. Either we develop our resources or China will be tempted to do it for us.

It's interesting how desperate you sound in your attempts to justify crimes like blowing up 40,000 year old sacred sites in the name of corporate greed. The China issue will be resolved one way or another by much larger historic and military and social and cultural forces than whether or not one petty little corporation was forbidden access to some ore. There are mines in WA that have already started that have thousands of years of iron ore to export.

Please note that I stated that the inclination to blame everyone else is not the exclusive domain of aborigines.

You need to study aboriginal health, closing the gap reports, and do some basic history and sociology. We have messed them up - and messed them up bad.

 

[eclipsenow]

Changing the date of Australia day in the long term, will not alter the landscape of the indigenous world. The damage was too deep and profound, and requires an enormous, long term input from Australian society.

Ok - then the onus is on you to please communicate clearer. "This seems to be a trivial post." seems to write off the whole discussion about aboriginal issues as trivial. But I agree with you! Yes, in comparison to what real aboriginal people are really going through, changing Australia Day is trivial. But at least not celebrating "Invasion Day" as our national day would be a start! Also, while we're still using Australia Day what do you think of Christian Apologist John Dickson's approach to it here? Worth 7 minutes of your time for this discussion. He suggests starting the morning in lament for the past and moving on to celebrate what we have today in the afternoon. Lament doesn't mean saying sorry all the time - but it does mean acknowledging what happened. Kind of like an ANZAC day for our fallen indigenous.
Australia Day Single

Did you know that Australia is the only Commonwealth nation that doesn’t have a treaty with its Indigenous people?

Agreed - but I'm not sure what a treaty would achieve? I'm not up to date on the claims for it - what are your thoughts?

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

There have been Australians in Australia for 60,000 years. That’s 60,000 years of Australian history and pre-history before the British arrived in 1788.

Pre-history. History implies written records...

Reading your post, it was difficult not to respond in kind to what amounts to an insult to all indigenous people – including, but not limited to, Australia’s indigenous population.

I wasn't insulting anybody. I was simply citing historical fact. It needn't and shouldn't be personal.

In spite of these disadvantages, Australians developed techniques covering replanting native foods, the maintenance of grazing lands using fire, fish farming and conservation of wild food sources. Because these methods are different, they don't meet the European conception of ‘agriculture’. Australian indigenous agriculture relied on maintaining and enhancing food sources already in the natural environment as opposed to the ‘rip out and replace’ methods of European farming.

Well, yes, for all your romanticizing of it, that's what anthropologists call a hunter-gatherer society. These gave way to agrarian ones in the Neolithic, because agriculture produced more food and allowed land to support larger populations. Except Australia never had a Neolithic Era. It jumped over that straight to modernity when the British settled there.

 

[klutedavid]

Ok - then the onus is on you to please communicate clearer. "This seems to be a trivial post." seems to write off the whole discussion about aboriginal issues as trivial. But I agree with you! Yes, in comparison to what real aboriginal people are really going through, changing Australia Day is trivial. But at least not celebrating "Invasion Day" as our national day would be a start! Also, while we're still using Australia Day what do you think of Christian Apologist John Dickson's approach to it here? Worth 7 minutes of your time for this discussion. He suggests starting the morning in lament for the past and moving on to celebrate what we have today in the afternoon. Lament doesn't mean saying sorry all the time - but it does mean acknowledging what happened. Kind of like an ANZAC day for our fallen indigenous.
Australia Day Single


Agreed - but I'm not sure what a treaty would achieve? I'm not up to date on the claims for it - what are your thoughts?

Today, Aboriginal peoples believe their treaty rights have become a series of broken promises. Time and time again during our hearings, people spoke eloquently about their understanding of the treaties and their frustrations at the manner of their treatment. Aboriginal people in Manitoba firmly believe that despite, or perhaps more properly, because of the treaties they entered into with the Crown, they were to have been allowed to retain part of their land, to retain their identities, their cultures, their languages, their religions and their traditional ways of life, including their laws and their systems of government. Those things have been denied to them.

If the courts have been unclear, then Parliament and non-Aboriginal political leaders have been equally so. The long-standing question as to the exact nature and extent of Aboriginal and treaty rights has yet to be resolved through legislation, or agreement, while legislation dealing adequately with the issue of Aboriginal self-government has been nearly nonexistent.

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

I don't have any special attachment to Jan 26th, though we do share it with Indian's Republic day so it's a good time to play cricket I guess.

The true day of federation was January 1st anyway. I'd be up for moving Australia Day to Jan 1st and combining the celebrations with New Year's Day. Make it a two-day holiday to make up for the loss of Jan 26th.

Then insert some other random holidays so we can all be like Victoria with their football holidays. Problem solved.

 

[eclipsenow]

Yes - that is the question.
If we were going to move it, when to?

 

[Red Gold]

Also, I love that you refer to aboriginal aquaculture. One day I hope to read more about it in Dark Emu.

He argues that the economy and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people has been 'grossly undervalued' for the past 200 hundred years. The early writings of white explorers and settlers are central to his argument; they described the cultivated way Indigenous people managed the land.

'Hunter-gatherer societies forage and hunt for food and do not employ agricultural methods or build permanent dwellings,' he writes.

'But as I read these early journals, I came across repeated references to people building dams and wells, planting, irrigating and harvesting seed, preserving the surplus and storing it in houses, sheds or secure vessels ... and manipulating the landscape.'
Rethinking Indigenous Australia's agricultural past
Dark Emu echoes historian Bill Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia, published in 2011.​

Yes, the Aborigines in Australia were not as "primitive" as some think.
And they were peaceful, for all I know.

 

[Aussie Pete]

Yes, the Aborigines in Australia were not as "primitive" as some think.
And they were peaceful, for all I know.

Aboriginal culture is shot through with witchcraft, the occult and demon worship. That's what keeps them enslaved. For what it's worth, my ex wife was part aborigine and my two kids identify as aborigines.

 

[Tanj]

Then insert some other random holidays so we can all be like Victoria with their football holidays. Problem solved.

Oi! We only have 1 football holiday. It's singular, not plural.

The other one is for a horse race.

Having said that, my work is giving us the Monday off as well, so I guess it is holidays.

 

[Estrid]

I can be blunter. There was nothing to invade. Considering that the aborigines didn't even practice agriculture, there was nothing to take from them either. Australia is a product of British settlement. Before then it was a wilderness.

You figure North America was the same?

 

[Aussie Pete]

You figure North America was the same?

Humanity has always sought territory, raw materials, labour and the ability to project power. I am English by birth. My country was invaded by Rome, Norsemen, the French and the Dutch. Germany attempted to take over but failed. Who do I claim reparations from? Oh, I'm part German. Does that make a difference? The USA has invaded Mexico, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada, North Korea, Vietnam just to name a few countries. They went to war with Spain and took the Philippines off them. No one is squeaky clean and it's foolish to try and rewrite history.

 

[Occams Barber]

Humanity has always sought territory, raw materials, labour and the ability to project power. I am English by birth. My country was invaded by Rome, Norsemen, the French and the Dutch. Germany attempted to take over but failed. Who do I claim reparations from?

We've been here before Pete upthread.

The Roman invasion was around 2,000 years ago. The Vikings around 1200 years ago. The (Norman) French 1,000 years ago. You forgot the Anglo Saxons 1600 years ago. All invasions were by culturally similar peoples and all have had the time to mix into one more or less homogenous populace.

BTW: there is still a social fault line in both class and language between the Nordic/Anglo-Saxon north, the Frenchified South and Celtic Wales. This is a fairly minor disadvantage compared to the massive problems still encountered by our indigenous population but it demonstrates how long intergenerational disadvantage can last.

The USA has invaded Mexico, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada, North Korea, Vietnam just to name a few countries. They went to war with Spain and took the Philippines off them. No one is squeaky clean and it's foolish to try and rewrite history.

Who the USA may or may not have invaded is meaningless in this discussion. If they had stayed and colonised, depressing the indigenous population in the process, things would have been different. (see Native Americans for a reference point).

Germany attempted to take over but failed. Who do I claim reparations from? Oh, I'm part German. Does that make a difference?

War reparations have been a thing since Cain hit Abel. Germany paid war reparations after WW2 as did all of the Axis powers. Since it was a part of Consolidated Revenue you got your share through common facilities and payments.

OB

 

[klutedavid]

FOR MOVING AUSTRALIA DAY TO ANOTHER DAY:-
1. A day of national celebration *could* occur on another day to CELEBRATE what we have in Australia now.
2. This would free the day from appearing to "celebrate" what our indigenous Australians see as "Invasion Day" and a precursor to the genocide/s that were about to occur. As the wiki says: "Some Australians regard Australia Day as a symbol of the adverse impacts of British settlement on Australia's Indigenous peoples.[53] In 1888, prior to the first centennial anniversary of the First Fleet landing on 26 January 1788, New South Wales premier Henry Parkes was asked about inclusion of Aboriginal people in the celebrations. He replied: "And remind them that we have robbed them?"[54]"
Australia Day - Wikipedia
3. We are a young nation, officially formed on New Year's Day 1901 - and Australia Day has 'only' been celebrated nation wide since 1935. We can change the day we celebrate this country if we want to. (How - referendum?)
4. It takes a lot to make Aussies go to a protest and there are tens of thousands of people now protesting our national day. "Thousands of people participate in protest marches in capital cities on Invasion Day/Australia Day; estimates for the 2018 protest in Melbourne range into tens of thousands.[56][57][58][59]"

FOR KEEPING ON 26 JAN:
1: European settlement - with all the good and bad that brought with it - is the forge that smelted the Australia we want to celebrate today, and 26th January is a historically significant day to celebrate the good in Australia.
2: Who said a national day can only celebrate the good? Can't we also commemorate and mourn the bad as well - and pay honour to those victims of our genocides in much the same way as we commemorate ANZAC day? A day of national celebration can be nuanced and remember the good and the bad in both speeches, performances, and monuments. We could start the day almost like ANZAC day with a lament for the bad - and then in the afternoon move onto the Australia Day awards and celebrating the good.
We are an educated people hopefully capable of holding more than one thought in our heads at a time.
3. What day would we move it to? The day we federated is the 1st January 1901 - so that day might involve too many hangovers from another very Aussie style of celebrating! (Not that I endorse that kind of celebrating - if you know what I mean?)

The British landed in Botany Bay. The British were the ones that conquered the indigenous nation. The concept of an Australian citizen was some time later. I blame Britain.

 

[Aussie Pete]

We've been here before Pete upthread.

The Roman invasion was around 2,00 years ago. The Vikings around 1200 years ago. The (Norman) French 1,000 years ago. You forgot the Anglo Saxons 1600 years ago. All invasions were by culturally similar peoples and all have had the time to mix into one more or less homogenous populace.

BTW: there is still a social fault line in both class and language between the Nordic/Anglo-Saxon north, the Frenchified South and Celtic Wales. This is a fairly minor disadvantage compared to the massive problems still encountered by our indigenous population but it demonstrates how long intergenerational disadvantage can last.


Who the USA may or may not have invaded is meaningless in this discussion. If they had stayed and colonised, depressing the indigenous population in the process, things would have been different. (see Native Americans for a reference point).



War reparations have been a thing since Cain hit Abel. Germany paid war reparations after WW2 as did all of the Axis powers. Since it was a part of Consolidated Revenue you got your share through common facilities and payments.

OB

Really. You should have lived in England in the 50's. Some rationing was still in effect when I was born (1951). The country was effectively bankrupt. Britain, France and Israel went to war against Egypt after Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. Eisenhower threatened to call in Britain's war debt, which would have destroyed the British economy. Eisenhower was played by the Egyptians and the Canal came under Egyptian control. It was built by the French, not by Egypt. Britain literally could not afford to continue the war, even thought it was already won militarily.

Any reparations from Germany came way too late to help the reconstruction immediately after the war. London was still a bombed out mess when I was born. Germany was also a mess, but they started the war, not the British.

 

[Aussie Pete]

The British landed in Botany Bay. The British were the ones that conquered the indigenous nation. The concept of an Australian citizen was some time later. I blame Britain.

It's history.Colonialism has been been going on since forever. People need to move on. Of course Britain was responsible. They did the same to NZ, the Dutch occupied Indonesia, The French a whole lot of islands and so on. Be glad the British settled Australia. It was a major base of operations for the allies against Japan. There were ports, airfields, armed forces and everything needed to take on the Japanese. No doubt Japan would have treated the aborigines as badly as they treated everyone else. They did not get the opportunity, thanks to the Australians who fought and died for the whole country, not just the white man.

 

[Bob Crowley]

I've sometimes mused about changing Australia Day, but the main problem is finding a significant event to use as the backdrop.

Federation on the 1st January is New Year and wouldn't be taken seriously. I can't think of any other contenders at the moment.

I think we might have to wait until we go through a major crisis eg. a major war, before we have a suitable date. The US has Independence Day on 4 July, the French have Bastille Day on 14 July, Russia has Independence Day on June 12, the Chinese have their National Day on the 1 October.

They all commemorate national struggles. We lost a lot of troops in two world wars, but that's not the same thing. So did just about everybody else, and some other nations lost a lot more.

I think we might have to go through a national struggle first which threatens our very existence, negative as that may sound.

 

[Aussie Pete]

I've sometimes mused about changing Australia Day, but the main problem is finding a significant event to use as the backdrop.

Federation on the 1st January is New Year and wouldn't be taken seriously. I can't think of any other contenders at the moment.

I think we might have to wait until we go through a major crisis eg. a major war, before we have a suitable date. The US has Independence Day on 4 July, the French have Bastille Day on 14 July, Russia has Independence Day on June 12, the Chinese have their National Day on the 1 October.

They all commemorate national struggles. We lost a lot of troops in two world wars, but that's not the same thing. So did just about everybody else, and some other nations lost a lot more.

I think we might have to go through a national struggle first which threatens our very existence, negative as that may sound.

Easy. Let's make it Chinese New Year. Get ready for the future.

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Easy. Let's make it Chinese New Year. Get ready for the future.

Better food for starters - I can get with that.
And the celebration goes for two weeks rather than one day = win-win.